The tragic events of September 11th have had a few unforeseen positive consequences. People around the world are beginning to reevaulate the things that really matter to them, and light has been shed on the inhumane living conditions found in Afghanistan under the Taliban's iron rule. Many stories of the terrible conditions faced by Afghan women hit the Western world in the weeks following the disaster. One women, accused of eating candy in public, told of being apprehended and raped by several Taliban soldiers when she had only been chewing her own hair in desperate hunger. Another woman suffered having her eyelashes ripped out by Taliban militia who thought they were too long. Women were victims of a corrupt system that denied them education and the right to practice medicine while forbidding them from being treated by male doctors. In cases of severe illness, women had to choose between dying or leaving the country.

The Taliban's segregation of the sexes kept women conspicuously absent from all public arenas. The windows of houses in public view were painted white to prevent the accidental viewing of women inside. Women were mostly confined to their homes and forced to wear head to toe burqa veils in public that completely shrouded their features. The Taliban-enforced treatment of women is in sharp contrast to their decadent visions of women in the afterlife, where they anticipate unlimited sex with 72 virgins.

With the recent successes of the Northern Alliance in defeating the Taliban, citizens are enjoying new found freedom. On the day the Taliban was ejected from the strategic city of Mazar-i-Sharif, long lines of Afghan men waited at barber shops to have their mandatory beards removed. The Afghan Islamic Press reported that women were casting aside the veils that had concealed their identities. Young men were seen for the first time in blue jeans, a striking departure from their traditional tunics. Such clothing choices would have resulted in severe punishment under the Taliban regime.